Ginger Tea
by faorism
Summary: Soku. 50-word collection. A story dealing with the perils of love, jealously, and steak-flavored lube.


_Author's Notes_: I really like these word collections. They're so much fun! Tough at times, yes—especially when your beloved editor, **ifthedeadwerealive**, gives you words that you would never use in any situation other than to make Riku a doctor or to kill off Sora—but other than that, no problem!

_Overall Rating_: M. Please note that although this is a fifty word (not sentence) collection, it is arranged in a linear fashion. This fiction is ambiguous-U, which is the first step away from my usual non-AU.

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**Ginger Tea**

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_Articulate_:

Sora and Riku met in a sandbox; and although they both were familiar enough with the English language to talk in a near articulate manner, the two boys didn't need to say a word to become each other's best friends.

_Tractor_:

While Tidus wished to be a famous blitzball player when he grew up; Kairi, an actress; and Wakka, a tractor; all little kindergartener Sora wanted was to be Riku's wife.

_Kettle_:

"The key to a lady's heart is a cup of good tea," Sora's mother told her son as she tipped amber liquid into two matching mugs.

The boy stared critically at the steaming kettle for a moment before asking, "Will it work on Riku, too?"

The woman paused, blinking, before tussling her child's soft hair. "Yup. Riku, too."

_Akimbo_:

Her arms held akimbo, Kairi turned a corner ready to scold her impish friends for being lazy. Instead of finding them goofing off as she had expected, the redhead encountered the picturesque scene of Sora with his head on Riku's lap as the silver-haired boy stroked his friend's chestnut tresses. Kairi left without saying a word, figuring Riku had the situation under control.

_Metastasic_:

After learning his mother's malignant pancreatic tumor was aggressively metastatic and had already spread to several other vital organs, Riku slept within Sora's soothing arms for the first time.

_Notion_:

Sora always found the notion of treasuring one's first kiss rather ridiculous, but he had not experienced it yet due to his fear of kissing someone he would end up hating later. He told Riku this as the older boy helped Sora study for his chemistry test the following afternoon. Riku rolled his eyes in response and leaned toward the brunet, pressing his lips gently against the other's mouth.

"There. Now we both don't have to worry."

_Saccharine_:

Staring viciously at his paper, Sora struggled to remember the general structure of a saccharine molecule (if it even had one at all); instead, all that came to mind was the warmth of Riku's lips.

_Platonic_:

Riku told Sora he was gay on a Sunday. Sora accepted it good-humoredly, adding that he himself was bi.

Surprisingly, neither Riku nor Sora ever asked the other if he thought their relationship was purely platonic: Sora not doing so because he dreaded Riku saying yes; Riku not doing so because he dreaded Sora saying no just to please him.

_Euthanasia_:

Riku identified the emotion flickering in the audience as horror as he delivered his debate speech on human euthanasia. He _knew_ he was taking a risk for defending assisted suicide as an option for patients in a permanently comatose state: he _knew_ the topic was far too controversial.

But Riku went ahead with it anyway because he _knew_ Sora would not only understand, but would be there for Riku later when the vivid memories of his mother's final, painful weeks overpowered him.

_Poppy_:

Riku once dumped a guy when he brought the silver-haired teen a wheat roll with turkey, mayo, lettuce, pepper jack cheese, and a hint of honey mustard.

Why?

Because Sora would have known to get the poppy seed roll.

_Leech_:

Sora once dumped a girl after she compared Riku to a parasite, claiming he leeched Sora's attention—and, more often than not, affection—that was rightfully hers.

What upset him the most about the breakup was that Sora knew she was right.

_Claustrophobia_:

Sora did not have claustrophobia, but when Riku confessed that he had lost his virginity the night before, Sora would have sworn the walls were closing in all around him.

_Shoelace_:

No one knew why Sora frantically apologized to Riku's current boyfriend when the blond nearly broke his neck after falling down a small flight of stairs. They figured Sora was just being compassionate or something.

What they didn't know was that, just before the blond fell, Sora had wished that he would just trip over his shoelaces and die.

_Soliloquy_:

Mesmerizing was the only word Riku could use to describe Sora as he woefully bawled Hamlet's most famous soliloquy.

_Potpourri_:

Riku was on the swim team for awhile but quit after his teammates refused to stop calling Sora "that potpourri-sucking theatre queer you're always hanging out with."

_Booze_:

Someone had brought booze, and Riku, Sora, Kairi and the rest were too rambunctious to resist the temptation. After getting utterly wasted, Sora declared a game of spin-the-bottle. The interesting part about it was that he only allowed Riku to play.

Too bad everyone was too smashed to remember it the next day. Pity, really, because they had gone at it like wildcats.

_Philanthropic_:

In his first phone conversation since Riku left for his freshman year of college, Sora clearly heard the bitterness in Riku's voice as he described the shallow students in his Accelerated classes, all of whom would probably graduate to become doctors, lawyers, or philanthropic CEOs. What the brunet did not hear was Riku's subtle yearning to be home again so he could waste every moment of his free time at Sora's side.

_Turquoise_:

An hour before prom, Sora—dateless—jumped when his doorbell rang twenty minutes before Kairi had said their friends' collective limo was to arrive at his house. The visitor was Riku sporting a slim-fitting tux, armed with a soft smile and a turquoise corsage.

_Juxtaposition_:

In one of his final high school English Lit classes, Sora spent a good seven minutes explaining the innuendo hidden in the author's juxtaposition of a description of raindrops merging on a glass window and an intimate conversation between the protagonist and her female friend. Although the class was skeptical of Sora's interpretation, the teacher only laughed, "You know, last year, Riku understood the passage exactly the same way."

_Calculate_:

Sora was a nice guy; but when Riku introduced his new boyfriend to Sora at brunet's eighteenth birthday party, Sora couldn't help but calculate the cleanest way to murder Riku's wooer.

Where was an icicle when you needed one?

_Brothel_:

The closest Sora ever came to killing a man was when he heard one of Riku's exes referring to the silver-haired man's dorm room as a cheap brothel.

_Steak_:

Even if Sora was earnest in his attempt to compliment Riku's succulent cooking, Riku found his ditzy friend's comment that he should make a line of steak-flavored lube just plain creepy.

_Incarcerate_:

Kairi held Riku as he tried to stop hyperventilating. If she knew he was going to react like this, the redhead wouldn't have elaborated when she told him Sora was in the hospital. Although, yes, Sora's (now ex-) boyfriend had been incarcerated and charged with domestic assault and battery, and, yes, Sora had to be admitted into the hospital, Kairi had called the police before the man could critically injure their beloved friend.

Kairi never did inform Riku of the cause of the attack, and she was happy he was too distraught to notice. After all, how could she tell him Sora was hurt because, in the height of passion, the brunet had moaned Riku's name instead of his lover's?

_Surreal_:

Yes, Sora felt a surreal amount of pain as Riku's tentative fingertips ran over the brunet's swelling bruises; but, no, Sora would _not_ ask the other to stop.

_Cadaverously_:

Riku's cadaverously pale skin reminded Sora of the unblemished surfaces of the ancient marble statues in the museum frozen eternally in a pose of absolute vigor and beauty.

_Platform_:

As he waited for the next train to arrive, the curious notes of a guitarist caught Sora's attention, and the brunet dragged Riku over to the performer. So entranced by the melodic strumming, so enthralled by the forlorn lyrics, Sora took his friend's hands within his own and began to dance. Nothing was planned out or discussed beforehand, but the two moved in unison and with such fluidity that they fooled everyone on the platform.

_Vexing_:

What Kairi found vexing about her friends' relationship was when Sora and Riku "fake" flirted with one another; they weren't fooling anyone but themselves.

_Sequin_:

Getting caught in the rain was one of Riku and Sora's favorite hobbies. In search for some cover, the thrill of the chase always energized them like nothing else. So when he dragged Sora under an awning, Riku was unable to restrain himself, drawing the brunet close enough to see raindrops on his brown hair flickering like light reflecting off of hundreds of clear sequins.

_Proximity_:

Neither man commented on their proximity, but their hot breath mingling in the moist air said more than they ever could.

_Globule_:

Nor was a word uttered as Sora's tongue swept across his friend's cheek, licking the globules of water clinging to the pale flesh.

_Vehemently_:

Nor when Riku's hands trailed up Sora's wet pants, vehemently kneading the brunet's haunches all the way up.

_Threshold_:

"Sleep with me, Riku," Sora said one rainy evening at the threshold of the silver-haired man's dorm.

"Sure."

_Agrarian_:

All thoughts about the twenty-page term paper on coastal agrarian societies Riku had to finish by Friday were forgotten the moment he and Sora flopped onto his bed, tongues clashing and clothes flying in every direction.

_Catalyst_:

The first moan Riku elicited from the other acted as a catalyst of ferocity and movement for the man's body, yielding a tenfold increase in the speed of his hips gyrating against Sora's.

_Potent_:

If Sora told a doctor his current symptoms (which included but were not limited to panting, sweating, light-headedness, inability to speak coherently, and feeling as though he had no control of his body), the doctor might have mistaken Riku's feathery touches for an impressively potent poison.

_Scarf_:

In order to keep himself from releasing shrieks of pleasure that might disturb the neighbors, Sora kept his eyes trained on a woolen scarf that hung on the bed's headboard, watching as the fabric twitched every time Riku's frame, glistening with sweat, rocked into him.

_Jubilant_:

Afterward, Riku fell onto his lover's (if he was even allowed to use the word in reference to Sora) body, deciding that his current jubilant bliss was worth any and all repercussions.

_Epiphany_:

Eyebrows furrowed, Sora couldn't shake the feeling he had forgotten to do something. He was just about to give up when he had an epiphany.

"What?" Riku growled as the brunet shook him awake.

Sliding a hand behind Riku's ear, Sora mumbled, "I love you."

_Exponentially_:

Sora once drew Riku a quick graph with an inverted parabola and an upward curve. He explained that the curve was Sora's love for him (growing exponentially for infinity) while the parabola was the silver-haired man's affection, which would eventually reach its peak when Riku realized that he could do so much better.

_Condensation_:

The condensation on the mirror had been too tempting for Sora to resist.

When Riku stepped out of the shower, he laughed at the message his boyfriend left: "Riku is sex."

_Armoire_:

Riku tried to search for something to give Sora to show the brunet that he was completely committed to their relationship only to realize that Sora already had a key to Riku's dorm, as well as a section of the closet and three drawers in Riku's armoire.

_Pineapple_:

Whenever Riku cut pineapples, he would remove the core—not because he had anything against it, but because he was so used to doing it for Sora that he couldn't think straight if he didn't.

_Barbarous_:

When Sora fucked him, what always amazed Riku was the barbarous amount of strength his lover could extract as he had his way with the silver-haired man.

_Daffodils_:

Sora liked to keep a small vase of flowers around to add a sense of domestic tranquility to their otherwise hectic lives. Although he loved them, he never set out daffodils because he knew they were Riku's mother's favorites and Sora would never do something that might upset his boyfriend.

_Milk_:

Riku realized that he was going to spend the rest of his life with Sora when the brunet sacrificed a bowl of his beloved Lucky Charms in favor of letting Riku have the last of the milk for his morning coffee.

_Synthesis_:

Riku and Sora's relationship was the perfect synthesis of respect, love, and companionship—meaning that although Riku _respected_ the physical boundaries set on humankind, the man _loved_ nothing more than to bend his _companion_ in new and interesting ways.

_Dexterity_:

Even though Riku was well aware of the extent of Sora's flexibility and dexterity, the silver-haired man still suffered a massive mental-nosebleed every time his lover twisted into another seemingly impossible position.

_Appendectomy_:

Sora remembered that night—the night he found Riku on their bed ashen-faced, clutching his stomach, and cawing out an anguished series of strangled yelps—as the worst experience in his entire life. While it took Riku three weeks to recover from his emergency appendectomy, it was months before Sora could sleep without the worry of waking up in a cold sweat.

_Ginger_:

When asked, Riku always claimed he had stayed with Sora for as long as he had simply because only the brunet knew how to alleviate his frequent colds. Although Sora understood Riku was just kidding, he would never tell his lover it was the addition of ginger in his tea that cured the sniffles.

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_Author's Notes_: With some of these words, you can see just how sadistic my editor can be. (Metastatic? Really? I don't know about you, but I definitely needed to look that word up.) I told her I refused some of her words, only to use them just to spite her. The "easy" words are from more benevolent people (basically, my sister), but I had to stop because I prefer challenges. Side note: Why are there so many A, P, and C words! Second Side note: I love surrealism. Dali is sex.


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